The Biographical Dictionary of America/Arnold, Richard (violinist)

ARNOLD, Richard, violinist, was born at Eilenburg, Prussia, Jan. 10, 1845. His parents immigrated to the United States in 1853, settling at Buffalo and later at Cincinnati, where Richard became the leader of a theatre orchestra at the age of eleven years. He had commenced the study of the violin when he was but four years old, and had played in public before he was seven. In 1864 he returned to Europe, and, entering the class of Ferdinand David at the Leipsic conservatory, spent the three following years in diligent study, graduating at the head of his class in 1867. From 1869 to 1876 he was one of the first violins in Theodore Thomas' orchestra, and from 1878 to 1891 he was the leader and solo violinist of the New York philharmonic club, when he withdrew to give his time to teaching and solo playing. He was elected a member of the philharmonic society in 1879, a director in 1880, concert-meister in 1885 and vice-president in 1896.